Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P636 (05-21-21)
Synopsis
Listen as Bob explains to new believers the role of the Holy Spirit, what salvation is, what happens when a believer commits a sin, even suicide, and what is worship. How is a church supposed to function. Go to Acts 2:42 and read it in its context and you will see an example of what church was like in those early days after Pentecost. As you ponder over scripture, looking up all the passages you can find on the Holy Spirit, you will have a deeper understanding of your identity in Christ, how the Holy Spirit indwells you, if you are born again, and how the Spirit will guide you into all truth, and how He is your Counselor and best friend. You will discern that the Holy Spirit is alive, living in you, and you have the privilege to participate in the divine nature, to allow and rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal truth to you. With your mind renewed, even though all things are permissible, but as a child of God, those things you are now ashamed of just do not make any sense to do anymore. They are just not profitable or constructive, and not consistent with who you are as a child of God. As scripture says, make no provision for the flesh, and that is the key to breaking a bad habit. And as you read Romans, you will know what true worship is, to make your body available to the living Christ to live His life in and through you. People put worship down as singing praise songs and that type of thing. You do not have to be saved to do that. But you do have to be saved to allow the Holy Spirit to live His life in and through you.
Transcript
Dale from Corpus Christi, TX
Dale: I really appreciate the radio rally in Corpus Christi. I wish there was more in attendance. They really missed a prime example of how God’s word should be taught. So I really thank you for that.
Bob: Thank you. That was a lot of fun over there. We got a great response from people, didn’t we?
Dale: We sure did. I will make this real brief. This was a question I was going to ask but we ran out of time on the rally. You mentioned Sunday on your metro bible fellowship, that you did three things. You met for fellowship, prayer and bible studies. But you never used the word worship. I will let you comment on that. I will hang up and listen to you on the radio.
Acts 2:42
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Bob: It tells us in Acts that the early church met daily for the apostle’s teaching, fellowship and prayer. So if you really want to know how the church was to be conducted, go to its origin. That is what they did. They met daily for the apostle’s teaching, fellowship and prayer. That is what we do. Worship is not in that lineup because worship is not something you do when you come to church. Worship should be something you do every day of your life. Worship in the New Testament is not what people think. It is not singing praise songs, holding up hands, not piously keeping them in your lap. It is making your body available to the living Christ who lives in you to live His life in and through you. That is your reasonable act of worship.
Romans 12:1-2
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Bob: What worship is is making your body available to the living Christ to live His life in and through you. People put worship down as singing praise songs and that type of thing. You do not have to be saved to do that. People say that worship is what you do on Sunday. You do not have to be saved or even go to church on Sunday. But you have to be saved for the living Christ to live His life through you and to make yourself available to God to do so. That is why the New Testament took on a brand new definition of what worship is. It is not something that can be copied by the lost. It is something that can only be done by the saved. On Sunday morning, you are not coming to worship God in some way. You are coming to allow God to live His life in and through you. That is obviously taking place when you are there. But a sad thing to think is that the only time you worship is on a Sunday morning, especially one hour a week, if that is the most you are doing, what people think worship is, what you ought to be doing, probably not more than 6 minutes of praise songs. That worship is just not what people think it is in scripture. It is born again people being available to the living Christ to live His life through us. I hope that helps, brother. Thanks for calling.
John from Greenville, SC
John : Jesus talked about two gates, a wide gate and a narrow gate. Those who get admitted to heaven are going to have to pass through the narrow gate. Many people think they are going to salvation, and end up having to go through the narrow, and they will not get in. What is your take on that?
Bob: That is an illustration, John. What he is saying to us is that the way to heaven is narrow. There is a broad way that leads to destruction.
Matthew 7:13-14
13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Bob: Religion is a broad way, but it will not get you to heaven. The people who are going to go to heaven are going on God’s condition, not ours. There is only one way a person is going to go into the presence of God of this universe. That is through faith in what his Son came to this earth to accomplish. Nobody will be going there because of what we have done. Only because of what He has done. All of us have sinned and all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. There is not one righteous, not one.
Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Romans 3:11
10As it is written, “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.
Bob: When they say there is none, there is none, including you and me. The only way we are ever going to go into the presence of God is when we have accepted God’s provision for sin in His Son, Christ Jesus.
Acts 4:12
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
p>Bob: In the world in which we live, John, as you know, the gate is wide and broad. You have your entire Muslim population. You have your entire Buddhist population. Just in the world alone, you have the religious people in Europe, Asia, America, and all over the world who go to church for social reasons and do not know the Lord from Adam. I was thirty six years of age, sitting in church all my life and never heard the gospel. And the denomination I was in, one of the larger ones in the United States, but the gospel was never proclaimed the entire time I was sitting in church. That was just one denomination. I could name hundreds. That is a broad way.
Bob: Any way will get you on the broad way, but only one way to be acceptable by God. First of all, accepting the fact that we are sinners and are dead. Many religions stop at just being a sinner. Sinner has a consequence to it called spiritual death. That is what you are saved from. You are not saved from sins, the cross did that. You are saved from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is eternal life in His Son. Only a living being will go in the presence of the living God. We are born dead spiritually and the only way to go into the presence of the living God is to be made alive and the only source of life is Christ Jesus. That is a narrow way. With all the population of the world over the last 2000 years, how many of the world have totally rejected Christ Jesus? There are not going to be the multitudes in heaven that people think. It is a narrow way.
John: I have another question. Have you heard of the Chinese theologian, Watch this man, Nee?
Bob: Yes.
John: I have read some of his books, and they seem a lot similar to yours. Is your philosophy similar to his?
Bob: I do not have a philosophy, John. I have not read Watchman Nee. I heard about him. But what I teach did not come from someone else’s teaching. I have just never been one to read a lot of books by other people. I believe that if the Holy Spirit of God lives in you, then we are told He is the one who is going to reveal the meaning of the word of God to us. I have been tenacious in letting Him do that. I am not really a good source for your question there.
John: I want to let you know, that one other source that is almost parallel to yours, and he has been deceased for the past 20 years. He was doing a lot of preaching in China, evangelizing around the world. From his one book I read his teaching is similar to yours.
Bob: Similar. It very well could be, brother. I appreciate your interest in the things of the Lord. I am just not a good authority on other people’s books. I probably would not have even read mine if I had not written it. In the thirty years I have been in the Lord, it has just been hanging onto scriptures without going to a lot of side sources. I believe with all my heart.
1 Corinthians 2:9-10
9 However, as it is written:“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”[Isaiah 64:4] – the things God has prepared for those who love him –
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
Bob: Only the Spirit of God can reveal the meaning of the word of God. So somebody, like Watchman Nee, is leaning on the Spirit of God, relying on Him, and not on their Hebrew, Greek or seminary degree, but on the Spirit of God living in him, and he is doing so in China and I am doing so in America. Then we will be in total agreement with each other. We have seen that with born again believers around the world.
John: Another thing I belong to church. It preaches the gospel. It is good for that. I find it very beneficial to find a bunch of us, like-minded, and support each other. It is a good thing to have others of the same faith.
Bob: Absolutely. There is nothing like being around like-minded believers. John, keep growing in grace, brother. You call any time, okay pal.
John: Okay. I will let you go now.
Bob: Okay, John. Bye. Bye.
Matthew from Phoenix, AZ
Matthew: I am a first time listener and a first time caller. I have a question concerning suicide. I heard different pastors and just well-versed people in the word talk about how showing yourself, even if you have received Jesus as Lord and Savior, will also earn you a ticket to hell. What is your insight on that?
Bob: Nonsense. If you are in Christ, you have eternal life.
1 John 5:10-12
10 Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Bob: If you have come to the point in time in your history, in your life, that you accepted the death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus for you, and you are born again, then you are born again period. It does not make any difference whether your death comes through an airplane crash, going over and fighting in Iran or Iraq or killing yourself, you are going to go to heaven. The only thing a person who commits suicide, and there are many people who get so despondent in their life that they take their own life. What they are doing is robbing themselves the privilege of watching God work in their lives to get them out of that. But as far as going to heaven, if they are in Christ Jesus, they will be in the presence of Christ, absent from the body and present with the Lord. A person teaching that other is teaching something contrary to scripture.
Matthew: Thank you very much for that clarification.
Bob: Okay, Matt? God bless you, my friend.
Matthew: Alright. Bye now.
David from Houston, TX
David: My question is about the Holy Spirit. Does the Holy Spirit live inside of us, like with the breath of life, or after we are born again Christians?
Romans 8:9
9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
Bob: After you are born again. David, scripture says if the Holy Spirit does not live in you, then you do not belong to Christ. None of us are born physically in this world belonging to Christ. We are all born separated from God, what is called dead spiritually. At the time of spiritual birth, that is what you are born again of. You had to be born naturally of mom and dad. Then Jesus said you had to be born again of the Spirit.
John 3:1-8
1 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”[d]
Bob: When that occurs, that is the day you accept Christ Jesus as your Lord and Savior and at that moment the Holy Spirit of God comes and takes up residence in your life and then becomes your teacher, your counselor, your guide. He literally, David, becomes the source of everything that you do, if you allow Him.
David: Yes. Thank you. That does make sense about the Holy Spirit. Do you have a bible verse for reference?
Bob: In John 16, he talks about the fact of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Do you remember when Jesus said this?
John 16:7-15
7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Bob: Jesus is saying, “I am going away and when I do, I will send My Spirit to live in you.” That is why you are a part of the body of Christ, because He now indwells you. His body is gone. It is not here any more, is it?
David: No.
Bob: Who is His body? We are. That is because the Spirit of God lives in us, and now because He lives in us, we have become His body here on this earth. Romans talks about that if the Spirit of God does not live in you, you do not belong to Him.
Bob: I would look up scriptures on the Holy Spirit. Go to your concordance and look up the Holy Spirit and read all the different passages that talk about it and God will bless you with it.
David: Okay. Thank you very much.
Bob: We also have a bible study booklet on the Holy Spirit that you pick up with all the different passages concerning the Holy Spirit. It is a very important subject.
David: Okay. I appreciate that.
Bob: Hang on now.
Ken from Fresno, CA
Ken: I was calling because I want to deal with the sin issue in my life. I am very familiar with your teaching but it seems as though my identity in Christ does not override my flesh. You take it from there.
Bob: Ken, your identity in Christ is what enables you to have a decision that is based upon truth. Your flesh is constantly and merely telling you something that is a lie. There is nothing in the flesh that ever tells you that is ultimately true. Flesh says, “Let us go. Get drunk and see how much it will be.” So you go out and get drunk, and it is not much fun. “Let us just have a few more cigarrettes.” If it satisfied you, you would only need one. Everything is a lie. Christ living in you is the only source of truth you have available to you. The first truth to get in your head is that you are a child of the living God. That becomes a reasoning ability for you. As a child of the living God, one thing that you now learned is that everything is permissible but not all things are profitable.
1 Corinthians 10:23
23 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” – but not everything is constructive.
Ken: I think a lot of times, Satan uses that against me.
Bob: So let us look at the issue you are dealing with. Yes, this is available to me. I can go back to my old lifestyle and go back to the thing that kills me, but is it profitable? Is it constructive?
Ken: Right.
Bob: If you are doing something, just dumping money down the tube, then you are pretty stupid to keep doing it.
Ken: That is the way I feel a lot of times.
Bob: It is probably because you are doing it.
Ken: Stupid.
Bob: Yes, that is right. We have to realize that. Jesus called us sheep, and that is the dumbest animal on the face of the earth. We keep thinking we are smart. He says, “No. You are sheep. You are so easily persuaded to do something contrary to what is good for you.” As you think through things, and you realize that if you had something that you ate that made you sick at your stomach every time you ate it and you just keep eating it, somebody will look at you and say, “Ken, you are a nut case.”
Ken: Right.
Bob: And you say, “You are right.” This does not make any sense. If somebody told you there is a slot machine there, and it never pays off, but you can put all the money into it. You keep putting money in the slot machine and it never paid off, and you were told it never paid off. Someone would say, “What are you doing? What is wrong with you?”
Bob: Now, habits have to be broken. Any habit has to be broken, smoking, drinking or carousing. First of all, you have to take away the things that promote it. You have to make up your mind that this is not for me as a child of God. And that is what you have to hang onto, that this is not for me as a child of God. As a lost person who is lost as can be sure that is fine. But if someone that has been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, someone made into a new creature, someone who has the ability to hold onto truth, which I did not when I was lost, this doesn’t make sense anymore for me to continue doing this.
Bob: So, every time you fall and get back up and get back into whatever you are into, that is the way God has to pull you out. Son you will have to say “This is foolishness.” When I was lost, but when I smoked I had the first fall to make up my mind to quit smoking. I had talked about quitting a lot of times. But it was not until the time I said, “This is ridiculous.” I am tired waking up in the morning and breathing like someone unplugged my iron lung. I am tired of that. I am pitching these things. I am through with it, period. Until that happened, I would have never quit smoking but when that determination was made, then I knew that was it. We know, as an example, you can say to people, “Do you not want to quit drinking?” “Yes, I want to quit drinking.” “Then take all the booze in your house and pitch it out.” “Uh Uh. I do not know if I want to.” “Then you just do not want to quit drinking.” When you want to quit then you will do what I did with cigarettes, to pitch them in the wastebasket and that is it. You want to quit drinking, you take booze out of the house and they’re gone. You do not even need to go to a bar. You do not need to. Go to a coffee shop instead.
Ken: So do you think I should pray to God to make me want to?
Bob: Yes. Make you want to want to. Yes.
Bob: Think about it, whatever you are doing, are you thinking about drinking?
Bob: There are two things that seem like that when I came to the Lord, I was really delivered from a lot of things. It was very radical. I got into street ministry from the start when I was saved. So I have always dealt with God with my identity. When I drink so I do things that are inconsistent with who I am, I know it is totally stupid.
Bob: You know, Ken. You just stop to think about it. Look how many years. Think about it as you and me being brothers in Christ. I drank just two. How many years have I been without. Lots of years. I am getting along fine. I am sitting there missing anything. I went to a big party when I was still in business. All the executives and their wives there, and all of them drinking. They came slobbering up to me, “Why are you not drinking?” “Let me ask you a better question. Why do you drink?” She said, “makes me happy.” I said, “If I got any happier, I would float out of this room. I do not need booze to make me happy.
Bob: I have the Lord living in me. Of course, you are standing there by yourself all of a sudden. Everyone has now deserted you like you had a bad case of body odor. That is just the way it is. Think about people that you know that do not drink. Christian and non-Christian. I go to friends all over the place that are non-Christians. They are naive people but non-Christian and never had a drink in their life. They are getting along fine. The issue is you do not need booze.
Ken: Right. I am going to God.
Bob: Yes. You do not need it. Whether you had God or not, you do not need booze. It is the case you got into a habit of the thing. You have to make up your mind. It shows you whether you made up your mind or not. Are you willing to get all the booze out of the house and pitch it? But when that time comes, and you do that, you will know that you are on your way.
Ken: Okay. Thank you for everything. Like I said, I have been a listener since I have been saved. It is unbelievable the things I run into sometimes with legalism and everything. I stand firm and God has never dealt with me on the basis of sin but always on identity. It troubles me that I do not see who I am in Christ. That is why I called.
Bob: Ken, again, you can also get hung up on things. You are not going to go to hell because you drink. That is not the worst thing in the world a person can do. The issue is because I know Christians who drink. I know Christian leaders who drink. I think it is a stumbling block for a Christian leader to be drinking in front of people. That is a personal deal with me. What another person does is between him and God. But the issue is do not be too hard on yourself. In business, you are supposed to be here and there. Just start rearranging your schedule and people will understand. Rearrange your schedule so you will not be around booze.
Ken: Okay.
Bob: Ken, I appreciate your call, brother. You keep in touch and if there is anything else we can do to help you, let us know. God bless you.
Ken: Okay.
Bob: Bye. Bye.
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